Wow! We did it! We won!

Of course, I just know we’d never have pulled it off had I not been glued to the television and screaming like a banshee for the entire two-hour telecast. So, to each of the Mighty Red Devils, I say, “You’re welcome.”

Circumstances beyond my control forbade my going to the Dome but had the Second Coming occurred at noon today, I’m quite certain I’d have asked the Lord Himself if He could hold on just long enough for the Devils to get a good lead.

There’s nothing like football to get the old heart to pumping and put the spark back into an otherwise boring day. I took a seat on the sofa at 12:45 and didn’t get up, not once, until the game was over. I had lunch brought in, took the phone off the hook, and put a “You missed me! Come again!” sign on the door. The catheter came in handy, too.

Golly gee, it’s fun to win, isn’t it? Vince Lombardi said it well. “If winning isn’t everything, why do they keep score?” My six-year-old neighbor summed it up in much the same way. “Losing sucks,” he said.

I am submitting a complaint, however, to the Georgia High School Association. The Commerce Tigers enjoyed way too much camera time. Our fans were hardly shown at all. Which means, to me anyway, winning may be the most important thing but good media coverage comes in handy, too.

Do you realize that watching Lincoln County football on film has provided proof of Larry Campbell’s age much as the rings of a tree do? No longer the young, slender, blondeheaded new kid in town, Larry is now…well, um…he’s a grandfather.

It occurred to me, watching him exit the field this afternoon that he looked slap worn out. But then, coaching is hard work. And don’t you know he’s gotten tired of the endless stupid questions thrown at him over the years by over-enthusiastic sports commentators?

[Commentator] “Well, folks, here comes the legendary Larry Campbell!”

“Congratulations, Coach, how does today’s win feel?”

[Coach Campbell] “Pretty much like the other 400, you dim wit.”

That’s what I’d say, not Larry. Coach Campbell always manages to remain pleasantly surprised by the same inane inquiries game after game and, on rare occasions, will actually look the interviewer in the eye and smile. What a guy.

Larry Campbell coached both of my sons and both were fortunate enough to have played on State Championship teams. Their rooms here at home are papered with framed and yellowed newspaper clippings of glory days past and a few photos of each of them with the Legendary Larry, his arm across their backs, all grinning like the cat that ate the canary, snapshots obviously taken on Championship Night.

Say what you will about the man, he knows how to win football games. And, Lord have mercy, we folks in Lincoln County do love to win football games. Will Larry ever retire? I doubt it. Not in my lifetime, anyway.

I heard that he said when he does decide to retire; the biggest obstacle he’ll have to overcome is the one he’ll encounter at his own front door.

“That would be Connie, barring the door so I can’t get in,” he said.

Connie, Larry’s wife since the beginning of time, loves football as much as he does and, according to her husband, “loves going to football games.” She simply doesn’t want him to retire and have to give all that up.

And I imagine she’s like most women whose husbands retire after umpteen dozen years in the work force. What do you do with them when they’re underfoot all the time? Just step around them? Ignore them? Use them as a doorstop? Decorate them?

My guess is that neither Coach nor his wife will have to worry about that for a while, at least not for the foreseeable future, Saturday night to be exact. Larry will be pacing the sideline as he has for the last thirty someodd years, while Connie watches from her perch, high atop the fiftyyard line, probably with their grandson on her knee.

Larry Campbell and the Red Devils. It was a marriage made in football heaven. And for the 35th time, Happy Anniversary! Here’s to many more.

Saturday night Coach and his Devils take the field once again in pursuit of a Class A State Football Championship, and something tells me they’re going to pull it off. The way I see it, the Devils can rest easy. Along with a multitude of Lincoln County’s faithful, I’ll be there, too (and in person this week) screaming like a banshee. What else is there to say? A Red Devil victory is in the bag.